About preferences and default settings

Many PowerBuilder applications store user preferences and default settings across sessions. For example, many applications keep track of settings that control the appearance and behavior of the application, or store default parameters for connecting to the database. PowerBuilder applications can manage this kind of information in initialization files or in the Windows registry.

Database connection parameters

Often you need to set the values of the Transaction object from an external file. For example, you might want to retrieve values from your PowerBuilder initialization file when you are developing the application or from an application-specific initialization file when you distribute the application.

For information about database connection parameters in an initialization file, see Reading values from an external file.

For an example of how to save and restore database connection parameters in the Windows registry, see Managing information in the Windows registry.

Toolbar settings

PowerBuilder provides some functions you can use to retrieve information about your toolbar settings and also modify these settings. By using these functions, you can save and restore the current toolbar settings.

For more information, see Saving and restoring toolbar settings.

Other settings you may want to save

In addition to the database connection parameters and toolbar settings, you may want to store a variety of other application-specific settings. For example, you might want to keep track of user preferences for colors, fonts, and other display settings.